COVID-19 Update – March 18th, 2020 At FCT Solder, the safety and well-being of our employees and our customers is always our priority, and we recognize the important role we play in providing our customers with supplies and services during this critical time. We are actively monitoring the COVID-19/Coronavirus situation and taking steps to help […]
Listen to “Episode 32: A Conversation with Greg Smith and Tony Lentz About Stencil Design and Void Reduction” on Spreaker. Tune in to Episode 32 of Mike Konrad’s podcast Reliability Matters! FCT Assembly Field Application Engineer, Tony Lentz, and BlueRing Stencils Manager of Stencil Technology, Greg Smith, were recently featured as special guests on this […]
We’re excited to share that FCT Assembly engineer Tony Lentz has been published in the latest Journal of SMT! “Fill the Void III” is the third in a series* exploring voiding (or gaps) in solder joints between circuit boards and components and expands on how to reduce voiding. Using specially designed circuit boards with components […]
We examined future trends in the electronics industry, and more specifically the surface mount process. Here is our summary of SMT trends that will dominate in 2019 and beyond. Solder Usage for Electronic Miniaturization The continuing trend for miniaturization of electronics creates ongoing challenges for soldering product formulators and stencil manufacturers. Usage of smaller components […]
Stencil design files are typically created along with the circuit board designs. The stencil aperture sizes are often the same size as the copper pads (1:1). If solder paste was printed using these aperture sizes, then issues could occur such as solder balling or bridging. It is common practice to reduce the stencil aperture size […]
Solder Paste, Surface Finish 0
There are many solderable surface finishes used on printed circuit boards. These surface finishes are necessary to protect the copper pads from oxidation and corrosion. Copper oxidizes very quickly and the oxide thickness grows over time. Copper oxides are very difficult to solder to especially with low activity no-clean fluxes. Solderable surface finishes protect the […]
Surface mount soldering is the process of creating circuits using surface mount technology (SMT) components that are mounted directly onto the surface of printed circuit boards (PCBs). SMT technology is a key driver in the ever-important work of miniaturization of circuits, allowing for smaller, lighter devices with ever-increasing capabilities. Today’s cell phones have exponentially more […]
Solder paste flux is a gelatinous chemical compound used mainly in combination with solder powder to create solder paste, generally mixed as a 50/50 ratio. Once combined, the paste is a gray, putty-like material. Solder paste flux serves a threefold purpose: Removing any oxidized metal from the surfaces to be soldered Sealing out air, preventing […]
Solder paste can be made with a variety of solder powder sizes. Solder powder sizes are classified by Type in the IPC standard J-STD-005 Requirements for Soldering Pastes. Table 3-2 details the solder powder size ranges for each type, and an excerpt from the table is shown below*. *IPC J-STD-005A Requirements for Soldering Pastes, […]
